Clinton likely to OK base closings

Stewart M. Powell, EXAMINER WASHINGTON BUREAU

Published 4:00 am, Monday, July 10, 1995

1995-07-10 04:00:00 PDT CALIFORNIA -- WASHINGTON - President Clinton is now expected to approve a controversial package of recommended military base closings after receiving guarantees that imperiled aircraft maintenance jobs can be spared in California and Texas.

Dixon wrote the Pentagon over the weekend that most of the 11,000 jobs at McClellan and the 12,000 jobs at Kelly could be shifted from the Pentagon to private contractors at the same sites.

Senior White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Clinton was now expected to accept the panel's plans to shut down the two bases along with 26 other installations across the country. Once approved by the White House, the list of proposed closings would go to Congress.

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Nine California bases, including the Oakland Army Base, are recommended for shutdown.

Dixon's letter apparently closes the circle of an intricate maneuver the White House has been working on for weeks in an effort to allow Clinton to adopt the base-closing report without unnecessarily alienating California politicians and voters.

California's 54 Electoral College votes are considered crucial to Clinton's re-election hopes next year, and state congressional leaders have been actively lobbying to save the bases.

On June 23, the independent base closure panel recommended a new round of base closings that included some - among those McClellan and the Oakland base - that were added by the panel without input from the Defense Department.

A political tightrope&lt;

Clinton had balked at accepting the plan because it would have such a potentially adverse impact on California's economy. All told, California will lose more than 58,000 jobs if the recommended closures take place, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who added that since 1988, the state had lost more than 200,000 jobs because of 22 base closures.

Last week, Clinton, seeking to save political face, floated a compromise plan for the McClellan facility that would shift some of the displaced jobs to the private sector in California.

Dixon has said repeatedly that the commission report itself gives the Pentagon authority to privatize some of the 11,000 military and civilian jobs that would be lost by closing McClellan, as well as some of the 20,000 jobs threatened by the closure of Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Never before has a president labored so publicly over the commission's recommendations. In 1988 and 1991, President Bush quickly sent the panel's blueprint to Congress, as did Clinton in a previous round of closures in 1993.

Under the 1990 law that has guided base-closing decisions in 1991, 1993 and this year, the president has until July 15 to accept the list and send it to Congress or send it back to the commission along with an explanation of his reasons for doing so.

Congressional review&lt;

If the list is sent to Congress, lawmakers have 45 days in which to pass a joint resolution disapproving of the list in both chambers; if they do not move to block the list, the panel's report becomes law. In previous base-closing rounds, the president and Congress have gone along with the panel's recommendations.

If Clinton rejects the commission's list, the panel must resubmit its recommendations to him by Aug. 15 with any revisions.

The president would then have until Sept. 1 to approve the list and send it to Congress. If he disapproves of it, the base-closing process for this year would be halted.&lt;

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